Who He Is
Peter is the apostle who examines Dante on faith among the fixed stars, and who, in the Primum Mobile, changes color to accuse whoever usurps his place in Rome. The poem calls him the first vicar of Christ, and he appears as the most precious fire among the lights that turn about fixed poles, to the point that Dante says his pen leaps and does not write his canto. He is the baron whom Beatrice asks to test the pilgrim on faith, the faith by which he walked on the sea. In the examination he is a master, and Dante arms himself like the bachelor who waits for the question; in the speech of canto XXVII he is the owner, and the threefold repetition of the place shows that his anger is that of one who has been dispossessed. The poem does not give him a name in every scene: in XXIV he is the great man to whom Christ left the keys, in XXV the first fruits of the vicars, in XXI he is Cephas, in the mouth of Peter Damian, and the name appears when the other saints speak of him, as in XXII (he began without gold and without silver) and in XXXII. In Peter the heaven is not only contemplative silence, and the beatific joy is interrupted so that the first pope can make the accusation.
Trajectory
In canto XXIV Dante's pen skips over Peter's canto:
Però salta la penna e non lo scrivo: / ché l’imagine nostra a cotai pieghe, / non che ’l parlare, è troppo color vivo., therefore the pen skips and I do not write it: for our imagination, not only speech, is too vivid a color for such folds.
The examination is scholastic:
Sì come il baccialier s’arma e non parla / fin che ’l maestro la question propone, / per approvarla, non per terminarla, just as the bachelor arms himself and does not speak until the master proposes the question, to approve it, not to end it.
The definition of faith that Dante gives is that of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and Peter approves it:
fede è sustanza di cose sperate / e argomento de le non parventi; / e questa pare a me sua quiditateFaith is the substance of things hoped for and the argument for things unseen; and this seems to me its essence. Saint Peter approves the answer and still asks why Paul placed faith among the substances and then among the arguments, which Dante also knows how to answer.
He moves on to the test of the coin:
indi soggiunse: «Assai bene è trascorsa / d’esta moneta già la lega e ’l peso; / ma dimmi se tu l’hai ne la tua borsa». / Ond’ io: «Sì ho, sì lucida e sì tonda, / che nel suo conio nulla mi s’inforsa»., then he added: "Very well has the alloy and weight of this coin already been tested; but tell me whether you have it in your purse." To which I: "Yes, I have it, so bright and so round that in its stamp nothing in me remains in doubt."
He asks where the jewel came from, and the answer is the rain of the Spirit:
onde ti venne?». E io: «La larga ploia / de lo Spirito Santo, ch’è diffusa / in su le vecchie e ’n su le nuove cuoia, / è silogismo che la m’ha conchiusa / acutamente sì, che ’nverso d’ella / ogne dimostrazion mi pare ottusa»., where did it come to you? And I: "The broad rain of the Holy Spirit, which is poured out over the old and the new parchments, is the syllogism that has concluded it in me so acutely that, compared to it, every demonstration seems obtuse to me."
And he raises the objection of circularity, which Dante answers through the miracle of the world's conversion:
«Se ’l mondo si rivolse al cristianesmo», / diss’ io, «sanza miracoli, quest’ uno / è tal, che li altri non sono il centesmo: / ché tu intrasti povero e digiuno / in campo, a seminar la buona pianta / che fu già vite e ora è fatta pruno»., "If the world turned to Christianity," I said, "without miracles, this one is such that the others are not a hundredth part of it: for you entered poor and fasting into the field, to sow the good plant that once was a vine and now has become a thornbush."
The profession of faith closes the examination:
E io rispondo: Io credo in uno Dio / solo ed etterno, che tutto ’l ciel move, / non moto, con amore e con disio, and I answer: I believe in one God, alone and eternal, who moves all the heaven, unmoved, with love and with desire.
In canto XXVII he warns that he is going to turn pale, and the whole heaven blushes with him:
Quelli ch’usurpa in terra il luogo mio, / il luogo mio, il luogo mio, che vaca / ne la presenza del Figliuol di Dio, / fatt’ ha del cimitero mio cloaca / del sangue e de la puzza; onde ’l perverso / che cadde di qua sù, là giù si placaHe who usurps my place on earth, my place, my place, which stands vacant in the presence of the Son of God, has made my cemetery a sewer of blood and stench, and with that the fallen angel, who fell from up here, is appeased down there. The triple repetition of "il luogo mio" interrupts the beatific joy, and it is the first pope himself who makes the accusation. Dante's heaven is not contemplative silence: the poem does not abandon the world when it reaches the top.
The accusation names the wolves in shepherd's garb:
In vesta di pastor lupi rapaci / si veggion di qua sù per tutti i paschi: / o difesa di Dio, perché pur giaci? / Del sangue nostro Caorsini e Guaschi / s’apparecchian di bere: o buon principio, / a che vil fine convien che tu caschi!, in shepherd's garb rapacious wolves are seen from up here across all the pastures: O defense of God, why do you still lie there? Of our blood the Cahorsines and the Gascons are preparing to drink: O good beginning, to what vile end you must fall!
Before rising with the other souls, he tells Dante to open his mouth and not conceal what he himself does not conceal. In canto XXV the pilgrim recalls him as the first fruit of Christ's vicars, and in canto XXXII Bernard sets him as the root of the rose, on the right, the one to whom Christ entrusted the keys, opposite Anna. The other saints evoke him before that: Peter Damian in XXI, as Cephas who came thin and barefoot, and Benedict in XXII, in the balance of the three founders:
Pier cominciò sanz’ oro e sanz’ argento, / e io con orazione e con digiuno, / e Francesco umilmente il suo convento; / e se guardi ’l principio di ciascuno, / poscia riguardi là dov’ è trascorso, / tu vederai del bianco fatto bruno., Peter began without gold and without silver, and I with prayer and fasting, and Francis humbly his convent; and if you look at the beginning of each, then look where it has run to, you will see the white made dark.
Themes Embodied
Peter embodies Faith as substance and Religion as origin: the Church he founded poor and fasting is the one that today covers its horses with mantles. The same mouth that examines the coin of faith denies the pope of now the place he occupies, and the poem sees no contradiction: examining what one believes and accusing whoever betrays the office are the same task.
The text sustains two readings of the wrath of canto XXVII. In the first, it is the poet's voice lent to the saint, who says what Dante himself would say. In the second, it is that of an apostle whose body, buried in Rome, is at the center of the complaint, and so the cemetery turned into a sewer speaks of his body. The order he gives Dante, to open his mouth, dialogues with that of Cacciaguida, to make manifest the whole vision, and the two make the poet the channel of an accusation that heaven authorizes.
Relationships
- Dante: the examinee, whom he tells to open his mouth.
- Beatrice: the one who asks him for the examination and changes color with him.
- Saint Bernard: the guide who places him as the root of the rose, on the right.
- Adam: the first man, root of the rose on the left.
- Cacciaguida: the great-great-grandfather whose order to tell everything Peter repeats.